Life, but not as we know it

It has been five weeks since my post and my how things have changed.

With what is now a pandemic sweeping across the world at speed, everyone, everywhere has something to say about Covid19.

When I last blogged, back in February the world was watching avidly as China dealt with the effects of a virus spreading like wild fire and hospitalizing many of it’s citizens.  At the time we were largely all thinking… Oh deary me, for about forty seconds before popping the kettle on and going about our business as normal.  Now, we are China, along with a whole host of other countries and the reality is of what is about to happen is really starting to hit home.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t really want to blog about the Coronavirus, but it is hard to talk about anything else, or at least anything that is not somehow affected by the spread of it.  The world is in a panic and people everywhere are following close behind.

Our day to day lives have changed, almost beyond recognition, schools are shut (I mean really, don’t they know I have teenagers), exams are cancelled, there will no prom for Elsie and her last day of school will come and go largely unnoticed.   There is no more football for the foreseeable, or anything else for that matter and now they are both stuck at home, lazing about (pretending to work in Google classroom) and eating what little food we have managed to cobble together over the last couple of weeks.  The rapturous joy I felt walking out of Waitrose with a packet of pasta and some pork sausages, last week, was tantamount to winning the lottery.

I have since visited the supermarket only when it is absolutely necessary as I fear I may not be responsible for my actions. 

I have neither the time nor the patience to watch greedy, selfish, bastards who think only of themselves desiccate the supermarket shelves, with absolutely no thought to others.  I will not be able to contain my distaste for them or their actions.  Therefore, it is probably best I stay out of the way.

Fortunately in the last few days things have changed somewhat at the supermarkets and not before time.  The supermarkets were slow to react to what was quickly becoming an out of control situation, we can only hope that they and us have learned something from this unprecedented situation and that they pop a note of ‘things to remember in a crisis’ somewhere, ready for when the next catastrophe hits the globe in a fifty years time.

It was only a few months ago we were all #bekind

Now, we are every man for himself and woe betide anyone who gets in the way of the last pack of bloody toilet rolls.

This morning as I watched a short sharp hail shower come out of nowhere, I wondered if  2020 is just going to be one of those years!

No one is prepared fully for what is about to come and that is because no one truly knows what is about to come and that is exactly what makes it so scary.

When people are scared they panic and when people panic they behave irrationally, it is a trend that nearly all of us follow.  In the same way that we watch others, to see how they react to a situation, so we can react the same way.  No one want to be the one who does something different or breaks from the norm.  We follow the herd, regardless of where the herd is heading, at least then we won’t have to make a decision, we can be part of a movement, a following, that makes all our decisions for us and relieves us of our responsibility as humans to do the right thing.

I feel like this may turn in to more of a rant as I go on, which was not my intention but forewarned is forearmed. 

Work is bloody hectic, as you can probably imagine.  For those you of you who don’t regularly read my very hit and miss posts, I work for the NHS.  I am what is now fashionably known as a key worker, along with dustman and supermarket staff and delivery drivers, the carers and the emergency services etc etc.

I have never really thought of myself as a key worker, if I’m honest.  I never would have thought that general administrative duties falls under the umbrella of essential or critical, but these last two weeks I have come to the sudden realisation that without me and my administrative colleagues, the whole place would be in chaos.  There would be no clinics, no questions answered, no information for patients, no swift changes made to all our clinics, that will essentially enable all the GP’s to carry on working, most of them from home (!!!) and that actually there would be no primary care, at all.

When you think of the NHS, you think of Doctors and Nurses, Surgeons and specialists, all the people who save lives on a daily basis.  You don’t think about the people who run everything, who arrange the clinics, who make sure everyone, staff and patients, are where they are supposed to be, at the right time, or the effort required to get just one patient through the referral system.  You don’t think that for every appointment, letter, result, test, clinic, that there is a person arranging it all and for the most part it is not the specialist involved.

It is quite amazing that despite all that is happening and that it is anticipated that nearly all of us will have been affected in some way by the outbreak of Covid19, the mere mortals of this world, such as the delivery drivers and the supermarket workers, will continue to work alongside us pen pushers at the NHS until the end,  oiling the cogs of the machine as it continues to turn.

We have had workers off with what we suspect is the virus, but there is (or was) no way of knowing for sure, but everyday we go in and do what we do.  Some grumble, some will always grumble, but on the whole it is our job to keep going.  There is no self isolation for us, it is expected that we will keep going until it is all over.  In a way I am pleased that I can work, I can’t imagine it is easy to be confined to your house for days or weeks, with no end in sight,  but my children are at home for sometimes impossibly long hours now on their own and I have a responsibility to them also, don’t I?

I feel frustrated.

My frustration is not because I don’t want to work, to do what I always do, or to do my bit, however small to help, but because I feel that there is no appreciation for it.  Not from you guys, but from the people that should care, the people I work for, the people who for all intents and purposes are the God’s of the land, who are looked up to and respected.  The ones who it seems feel that the risk to their lives is way more important than the risk to mine.  That is what I feel frustrated about.

Those that are comfy at home and able to work and look after their families without fear of the outside world, while someone, somewhere, is holding it all together for you.

Things will get worse before they get better, we all know that, even though some still carry on as if nothing is happening.  Like the guy who messaged me to see if I wanted to meet up last night.  Moron!

Doesn’t he understand social distancing.  What does he want to do play charades?

I mentioned to him that we can only meet by face time at the moment because just in case he hadn’t seen the news, there is a fucking pandemic on the loose!

Why aren’t you in self isolation I asked, he said…  I am, you can come to me! 

Jesus! I have no words.

Dating is now strictly off the menu, as is socialising of any kind, unless you want to do it at home with the people you live with and lets face it most of us don’t.

I have teenagers, they no more want to spend time with me than I do with them, at least not for more than an hour at a time at anyway.

Let us just hope and pray the Wi-Fi doesn’t get infected too!

Still be kind and think of others, it will help.

❤️